“When you summon me, it’s like before. I go into a seizurelike state.”

“Oh.”

“A word of advice. Never have a seizure when you’re trying to escape the crushing jaws of a garbage truck.”

“Oh. Oh! Oh, my god. I’m so … wait, why am I apologizing? You escaped. From a maximum-security prison. In a garbage truck?”

“I told you. They wouldn’t let me out otherwise.” He laid his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes. The pain coursing through his body was wearing on him. “Let’s get out of here.”

After a long moment, I asked, “Why don’t you just take my Jeep?”

A mischievous smile slid across his face. “I am.”

“Without me in it.”

“So you can run to the clerk? I think not.”

“I won’t tell anyone, Reyes. I promise. Not a soul.”

With a sigh, he opened his eyes to me. He was so beautiful. So vulnerable. “Do you know what I would have done had that man figured out the truth?”

I lowered my head and didn’t answer. Maybe not so vulnerable.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“But you will if you have to.”

“Exactly.”

I turned the ignition and swerved onto the highway. “Where are we going?”

“Albuquerque.”

That surprised me. Not Mexico? Not Iceland? “What’s in Albuquerque?”

He closed his eyes again. “Salvation.”

8

When everything is coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.

—T-SHIRT

A light drizzle misted the atmosphere, making the headlights of oncoming vehicles blossom into a spectrum of colors like dozens of mini-rainbows. The rain had let up, but the stars were hidden by dense clouds. As we drove, Reyes seemed to be sleeping. Still, I wasn’t about to risk my life by trying an escape, no matter how much I’d always wanted to execute one of those dive rolls out of a speeding vehicle like in the movies. With my luck, I’d just be plowed under by the next car on the interstate. Wait a minute. That gave me an idea: Cookie and I could be stuntwomen.

I practiced a little evasive maneuver, mostly because movie directors loved that stuff, and Reyes jolted in the seat. He grabbed his side with a sharp intake of breath, clearly hurting. And from the amount of blood that had saturated the coveralls, the wound was significant. We healed faster, much faster, than everyone else. Hopefully that would be enough to keep him alive until I could get him help.

I let the air escape from my lungs slowly, wondering how I could be so utterly scared of someone and yet so consumed with his well-being at the same time. Reality took hold again. I had actually been abducted by an escaped convict. On a scale of one to surreal, this one rocketed into the double digits. The optimistic part of me that saw the cup half full was—disturbingly—a little elated. After all, this wasn’t just any escaped convict. This was Reyes Farrow, the man who haunted my dreams with far more sensuality than should’ve been legal to carry in public.

Playing chauffeur to a convicted felon with a homemade knife who insisted on poking me in the ribs every time I hit a bump in the road had not been part of my plans for the evening. I had a case. I had places to be and people to see. And two horror movies just waiting to wreak havoc on my nervous system.

“Take the San Mateo exit.”

He startled me. I turned to him, a tad braver than an hour ago. “Where are we going?”

“My best friend’s house. He was my cell mate for over four years.”

“Amador Sanchez?” I asked, the surprise in my voice undeniable.

Amador Sanchez had gone to high school with Reyes and seemed to be Reyes’s only connection to the outside world before he was arrested as well for assault with a deadly weapon resulting in great bodily harm. Against a police officer, no less. Never a wise decision. What neither Neil Gossett nor I could figure out was how Amador and Reyes had ended up cell mates for four years. And Neil was the deputy warden. If he didn’t know how that happened, nobody did. Clearly Reyes’s résumé included more than just general in hell.

Reyes opened his eyes and turned to me. “You know him?”

“We’ve met, yes. When I was trying to find your body before.” I couldn’t help a quick glance at that very thing. Demons had attacked him by the hundreds, had practically ripped him to shreds, yet here he was, two weeks later, almost completely healed. From that event, anyway.

His mouth widened into a grin. “I take it he was a lot of help?”

“Please. You must have something on him.”

He laughed softly. “It’s called friendship.”

“It’s called blackmail and is, in fact, illegal in most countries.” I glanced over at him as oncoming headlights illuminated the gold and green flecks in his eyes. He was smiling, his eyes warm, soothing. They made my insides gooey.

I blinked and turned away.

“What time is it?” he asked after continuing to stare a long moment.

I looked at the clock on my dashboard. “Almost eleven.”

“We’re late.”

“Sorry,” I said, both syllables dripping with sarcasm, “I didn’t realize we were on a schedule.”

We pulled up to the Sanchezes’ house, a stunning trilevel Spanish-tiled adobe in the Heights with a stained glass entryway. It hardly fit the image of an ex-convict who’d done time for assault. It was much more of a tax-evasion rap, an embezzlement kind of stretch.